At some point in the late 90s, I moved all of my CDs into 4 monstrous black folders, along with the booklets (and the card from the back of the jewelbox if it had a tracklist that the booklet lacked.)

The massive folders were divided roughly and labled by genre.
So for 7 or 8 years, my music was sorted into

jazz / r and b / classical

rock / rap / novelty

electronica / world / compilations / soundtrack

chick singers / guy singers / pop

So, when I actually wanted to locate a specific disc, I had to think about it in terms of this categorization.

I used this structure when I ripped all my CDs into iTunes. (Though I kind of overdid it in the folder structure... C:\data\media\music\MONSTROUS\MONSTROUS 2 - rock rap novelty
is 2 or 3 levels too deep.)

I'm thinking about switching primary computers, and they say that it's much easier to keep the ratings I've laboriously applied to every song if I let iTunes rearrange the folders on its own.
I'm oddly reticent to do that. I have this weird, nostalgic attachment to my
old, hamfisted way of organizing my musical life, even though it hardly ever comes up when I'm using iTunes or my iPhone.

Information Nostalgia and Clutter! I need to fight it.

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